Psychologist, peace builder, and storyteller of the human spirit.
I was born and raised in Bello, a small city next to Medellin in Colombia. Many people know it because of the Narco drug trade. For me, it is the place that taught me what violence and love can both look like.
I became a psychologist to help heal what I saw around me. Today I keep writing, speaking, and helping people find their own spark in life. Learn more about my story below.
Since middle school, I wanted to be a writer. My friends used to ask me to write their love letters or school projects. I always loved finding words for feelings that others could not describe.
Those years taught me that language can heal. Later I learned that listening can heal for awhile, but love will heal forever.
In 2000 I arrived in the United States with a suitcase and my psychology degree, but not my language. I had to start again.
I learned English, raised my children, and rebuilt my life. Over time I opened my private practice called U-Turn to Your Spark. For more than twenty years I worked with adults, couples, and families. Every patient taught me something new about resilience.
“Life is a spark, happening right now. Make the turn to your spark today.”
In the late 1990s I worked as the Peace Advisor in my city, Bello. During that time, I created the Human Vision Decontamination program, which we called “Shalom,” meaning peace in Hebrew.
With the support of the Colombian and Israeli governments, I took forty-two teenagers who were at risk, some who had worked for Narcos, to the desert in Israel. There we worked to unlearn violence and to understand peace.
The experience transformed the city, reducing the index of violence around 30%. changed their lives and mine. It also put my life in danger. When the threats came, I had to leave Colombia overnight.
“Frontiers are stronger than those made of metal because they are mental. To go over them, we need a change of vision.”
After listening for 35 years, and sometimes talking, I decided to write about what I learned. My first book, Más Allá de la Piel (Beneath the Skin), was published in Colombia in 2003. Later I wrote Human Vision Decontamination in 2008.
My research “Attachment and the Correlation on Join Insurgent Groups” was published in the International Journal of Psychologists in 2009.
Now I am finishing my memoir Made in Colombia: A Story of Life, Resilience, Love, and Peace
I have spoken at psychology conferences in Colombia and at the World Summit of Social Workers in Jerusalem. I have also served on the boards of the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Board of Education, the Community Research Center, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
For more than twenty years, I guided adults, couples, and families in my private practice called U-Turn to Your Spark. Through that work I helped people reconnect with their inner light and discover new ways to heal and grow. In Colombia I founded Fundación Visión Humana Universal, a nonprofit that supports teenagers at risk of violence. It is still close to my heart.
I do not define myself by religion. I believe in a Creator, an organizer of nature and life. The same power that shapes a baby’s tiny fingers, the bloom of a flower, and the rhythm of the ocean.
I have learned that love brings life happiness and richness, and violence brings evil and destruction in the most unthinkable ways. My work as a therapist and writer is to help others find the spark that keeps life meaningful.
“We have two lives, and the second one begins when we realize that we only have one.”
Thank you for reading about my journey. If you are a reader, editor, or publisher who believes in stories that heal, I would love to connect.